Find Me At Screen Rant

Friday, September 26, 2008

Somewhat entertaining, gimmicky techno-thriller sabotaged by its own preposterousness. Eagle Eye, an intelligence-gathering AI program turns into Skynet's overly patriotic, equally crazy girlfriend. Eagle Eye should have just built time traveling Terminators. Would have been a huge improvement. Credibility of the plot stretched far beyond breaking point. Steals from every other movie where a "computer turns on humans", including the very similiar Wall-E just three months ago, and The Simpsons episode when they had a robot house. Even reduces itself to cribbing from Stealth and sends a robot plane to shoot missiles at Shia LeBeouf and Billy Bob Thornton. Why do sentient computers always think missiles are the best way to resolve a problem? Eagle Eye's plan to make Vic Mackey President of the United States is ill-advised at best. There's a shocking swerve where Eagle Eye calls Michelle Monaghan and gives her a secret order. Only Shia and complete retards were surprised the order was "shoot Shia." I did like Eagle Eye's impatience when Monaghan hesitated. Rosario Dawson's idea of acting like an Air Force liaison was to let her pants suit handle most of the performance. There's a nice scene on a plane between LeBeouf and Monaghan where the bullshit took a break and they were allowed to have a quiet character moment together, but overall Eagle Eye is a Greco-Roman thumb to the eye.

Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Smallville. If that's what the new Smallville is gonna be like, count me in. I was pretty wowed and very pleased by the new direction of this show. The first five minutes of Lois and Clark at the Daily Planet was better than every single Daily Planet scene in Superman Returns combined. I don't think Clark has ever been funnier.

"This is a nice shirt!"
"A phone booth?"
"As long as I don't have to wear a tie."
"If I can keep my secret from you, I can handle your cousin."

The biggest howler was after Davis Bloome blew the Chloe engagement and asked Clark not to say he said anything: "I won't reveal my sources."

Follow that up with the hilarious delivery of this line to Chloe re: her engagement to Jimmy Olsen: "Is there anything you wanna tell me?"

Lois was also funny, especially the face she made when she said Jimmy Olsen's name.

Clark: "You're willing to share a byline with me?"
Lois: "Oh God no!"

That's exactly right! It's really too early to say how the rest of the season will shake out but they came out of the gate very strongly with the Lois and Clark competing reporters dynamic. I even LOL'd when Lois took a red marker and "corrected" the obituary Clark wrote.

Even without a tie and glasses, Clark out of the flannel and running around in grownup clothes was pretty striking. When he was wearing his borrowed blue dress shirt and pulling people out of the exploded bus, you can almost see Him. Just imagine the S and the red cape billowing and it's Him. It's really Him. In fact, Clark has never acted more like Superman. His speech to Plastique was very Man of Steelish. He wasn't even being a dick the whole episode.

The set up for the supervillain team Tess Mercer recruited Plastique for made my comic book nerdy self very happy. I hope they do the slow burn throughout the season and that they do pull the trigger on the Justice League vs. the Legion of Doom.

I even liked Doomsday. The little tease of him naked in the alley and seemingly transforming back to human was very nice. So it seems he does become a monster. If this vastly improved incarnation of Clark continues, I might actually be sad if Doomsday kills Clark. A year ago, Clark's gruesome death would have been the ending to Smallville I preferred. Not so much now, if this keeps up.

Next week, the not-so-Secret Origin of the Green Arrow! Color me actually excited.